I had a pug run, and this is how you can tell it'll be a bad one. I was on my Cleric, and was just starting. Joined a Water Works group, and the first thing out of the group leader's mouth was 'we got a healer, we can do elite!'

Bad sign. I didn't speak up, or drop, so we entered. Group was a Ranger, 2 Rogues, Barbarian leader, and myself. At the intersection with the fire trap, the Barbarian went straight- through the trap. 1 Rogue went left, the other right. Leaving me and the Ranger standing dumbfounded. Barbarian shorty comes screaming back, screaming into the mic about the 'stupid f*@%ing healer' and other such pleasant descriptions. He runs into the trap again, survives, but dies to a long range lightning bolt. Both Rogues died alone. Me and the Ranger tried, and managed to clear the trash the Barb had drug back, but I was nearly out of sp, and the rest of the group had, after cursing me out for not rushing through an elite trap and being able to go in three directions at once, dropped.

This was maybe a week after starting to play. After a couple of runs like that, I about quit DDO, but happened to wander in here and joined the group.

Of course, on the other hand, I had a Vision of Destruction run in which the entire group made it through the Sub with only my aura healing them; I was free to destruct/implode stuff. At the raid itself, the tank was kept up with the odd heal scroll; his healing amp was so high, and actually had AC to match. He took very little damage, usually clearing it up himself. Again, most of the damage done by trash and AoE spells was handled by the Aura and Burst. Even acting in an offensive capacity, I still finished with half my sp bar. This was pre-U9, so no Divine Punishment.

Another good run was when I healed Hound of Xoriat on my FvS. First raid I had ever healed. The more experienced divine there taught me about Quickened Mass Heal's efficiency, and they even insisted on sending a Lorrik's Necklace my way.

So like Peter said, it's really a throw of the dice when you join a pug. I usually don't pug save for raids, since I build self-sufficient characters designed for solo/make stuff happen in case of wipe.

Xorian Cipher I think only JM really knew. Then we had a somewhat bad split, with a melee-heavy group and a ranged heavy group. And Arrows aren't really good against skeletons. Add in that it was on elite, and not exactly an easy quest in the first place, and it was a recipe for a wipe.